


Moonlines

by Blue_Sparkle



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 16:01:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sparkle/pseuds/Blue_Sparkle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fluffy fic about Thorin and Billa's married life and Thorin's 'glow-in-the-dark' tattoos.<br/>can be considered a sequel to 'To make a crown'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonlines

A cold draught woke Billa in the middle of the night and she pulled the thick fur trimmed blankets closer to herself, hoping to find some warmth in the big bed and fall back to sleep quickly. Cool gusts of wind kept brushing over her hair and soon made her shiver too much to fall back asleep. She still hadn’t forgotten the chilly nights on her journey with Thorin Oakenshield’s company, but while it wasn’t as cold and uncomfortable as then, her lying in a cosy bed and in nothing more than her nightshirt made it seem just more bothersome.

With a heavy sigh Billa shifted closer to the left side of the bed, hoping to cuddle up to Thorin for some warmth. But the pillows beside her were empty, and as she stretched her arms out to reach out to her husband, she found the blankets cool to the touch. That finally made her open her eyes and lift her head to see what was going on.

Thorin usually didn’t leave their bed in the middle of the night, and if he did he always returned so soon that Billa hardly noticed his absence and never before had the bed been cold when she woke up.

Sitting up and leaning on her elbow, Billa looked around the room, eyes squinting as they tried to adjust to the darkness. Thorin’s clothes and armour still lay on the chair near the bed, so he couldn’t have gone far, and as she looked towards the window she saw him standing there.

His back was turned to her, and he was still nude as he had been when she fell asleep the previous evening. The shutters were all opened, the heavy ones out of stone and metal and the translucent ones made out of coloured and clear crystal and glass, which explained the cold wind that had woken Billa in the first place. Thorin stood there unmoving, and judging by the temperatures in the room he must have done so for a few hours now.

He must be cold there, Billa thought, and just as she was about to call for him to return to her, as to not catch a cold, something shining on his skin caught her eye. For a second she thought that it simply was the moonlight reflecting of Thorin’s skin, but it was way too bright and only a few lines stood out this way.

Billa shifted in the bed to face him and let her eyes roam over her husband’s back. She had been aware of Thorin having tattoos even before they had started courting, but only after they had reclaimed Erebor and married did she get to see and memorise all of them, but never before had she seen anything glowing on his skin before, and she couldn’t even recall any kind of marking at these places at all.

The silvery lines where very thin for the most part, hardly half as thick as the black ones, and they didn’t follow a discernible pattern but seemed to be like veins on Thorin’s skin, and while the soft light coming from them might have made them look like something aracne and airy on someone else, on him it looked like something solid and out of metal.

The blanket had slid of Billa’s shoulders while she sat and watched, so she gathered it up and wrapped it tightly around herself before she stood up and soundlessly walked over towards the window. Thorin was staring out over the area around the mountain, where some patches of the land were still covered in snow from the day before. It was a beautiful view from the royal chambers, the window being an opening in a steep cliff on the mountain face, unreachable from the outside. Thorin had shown it to her when they explored the mountain for the first time, and on their trips outside he had also showed Billa that the opening could hardly be seen between the hard edges of rock surrounding it.

Billa took a few moments to just stand behind him and look out at the world beyond the mountain before reaching out to wrap her arms around Thorin’s torso, letting the blanket rustle loud enough for him to hear that she was there.

“Are your wounds paining you again?” she asked quietly, rubbing her finger pads against Thorin’s skin in soothing circles. The battle over Erebor was months ago, yet Billa knew that most of her friends still hadn’t healed completely either. “Should I fetch you some medicine?”

Thorin shook his head slightly, not moving apart from that, and Billa leaned her head against his shoulder then, letting her hold on him tighten. “Will you tell me what it is then?” she asked, glancing up. No reply came to that, Thorin’s expression remained withdrawn as he looked at the world, lost in thought.

Billa didn’t mind it, she knew that he would talk eventually. As she waited for him to speak or not, she shifted her head so that she could see the silver patterns that had caught her attention. Now that she was closer, she could see that the lines on Thorin’s chest were the brightest, fading as they moved over to his sides and back, ending as nearly invisible shapes between his shoulder blades.

“What are these? These shining patterns on your skin?”

Thorin glanced down at her blankly for a few moments before his eyes moved down to his own skin.

“These?” he asked. “I have hardly thought about them in a while, I forgot that you couldn’t know yet.” He shook his head before continuing his explanation. “They are like the runes we use for hidden messages, only visible in the light of the moon. Warriors and members of the royal families sometimes have them, but even in my youth they were becoming rarer.”

He stared down at the patterns and Billa reached out to trace these new pictures on her husband’s skin, committing them to memory.

“Why? They are beautiful.”

“At the time hardly any of the Dwarves that wanted or could afford them would leave the mountain or have their skin exposed in the moonlight to see it. Not everyone wants to pay for something out of Mithril to be pricked into their skin if they will never really see it.”  
“It looks like the metals in the mines down bellow. With the patterns and how it glows.”

Thorin cracked a smile then and pulled her closer to kiss her forehead. “That is the idea, yes.”

Billa snuggled up to him as he held her close, and she took care to wrap some of her blanket around him. His skin was still warm and she was sure that Thorin didn’t feel cold at all, but it made her shiver to see so much of his exposed skin in the cool winter air. After a while, Thorin sighed and rested his chin against her head.

“I have been dreaming again, about how the mountain looked before we started the restorations. I still can’t believe that after all these years Erebor is ours again, I can’t believe that I am King in more than just the name. In my dreams I fear that I will wake up and I will be on my own and on the road again.”

His expression twisted into one of great sorrow, and he looked back at the world outside. “It is ridiculous to think that way.”  
Billa stood on her tiptoes and leaned up to kiss his cheek.

“It is not! You will need time to realise that something you didn’t have for so long is yours again, there is nothing to do about it. Erebor is reclaimed and soon it will be just the way it was in the past. Then you will get used to it and truly feel like this is real.” She smiled slightly. “And I promise you, you will never be on your own with this again. I made my vows to be by your side and I will! Should you one day wake up to find Erebor lost again, I will be there to help you get it back.”

Thorin watched her in awe before pulling her up into his arms suddenly, making Billa shriek and kick with her legs to try and reach the ground again.

“My treasure, my beautiful fearless lady,” he said, burying his face in her hair. She laughed and hit her hands against his arms as he held her until the blanket nearly fell off her shoulders.

“Come back to bed, you will freeze and we still have some hours of the night left for sleep,” she said between laughs. “And please close these window-shutters.”

He shook his head and carried her through the room to put her down on the bed before climbing under the blankets with her. “You will not grow cold, my flower,” he said as he pulled all the blankets on the bed around them before curling his arms around Billa’s body.

She cuddled closer to him and Thorin soon closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep as he always did. The wind was still blowing through the window, brushing cold against Billa’s hair, but it was warm under the blankets.

Thorin’s arm was stretched over the blankets as he held her, and as the window was still open the patterns remained visible and illuminated his skin. It was an entrancing sight and she turned her head and kissed the silver lines softly, before leaning her head against Thorin’s chest and closing her eyes to let herself sink back into her dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Written while I had no idea how to go on with the other fic, then nearly forgotten in the WIP folder and it is also based on Inja's headcanon and this picture here: http://asparklethatisblue.tumblr.com/post/50743133081/headcanon-time-inja-and-me-are-writing-fics-for  
> (it is basically just a couple of headcanons put into fic)  
> I think I'll make this and tmac a series, and should I ever come up with more I'd add it there. Does someone know if it's possible to have a series where two authors post things?


End file.
